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Hitting downswings

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 102

Welcome Raz.

I find that when I'm on a downswing, I need to slow everything down and take baby steps to take care of myself. I may not be able to accomplish all that I want, but I let that be okay in my mind. I try to be at peace with the downswing, and work with it instead of fighting it (sometimes successful, sometimes not). By working with it, I mean I try and listen to the messages I'm getting from my body, or string of thoughts. In your case, it sounds like grief has triggered this downswing. What everyone else has said is true, so I won't add too much more to that except for this: Grief never goes away. As the years pass you might experience greater lengths of time between grieving periods, but it seems that it's always just as intense.

Do you have someone you can process your feelings with? That would be helpful, as would journaling your feelings. Writing here was a great idea too. So good job with that. Keep us posted, okay?

Deborah

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 224

Hello Razzy,

As Goofy mentioned, it is common to still feel grief and sadness over the loss of a loved one. I encourage you to work through the session of the program that has to do with Grief (session 17). Read through the part that deals with coping, there's some useful exercises there that may help you.

In regards to going through downswings. Instead of focusing on what caused the downswing, try to remember what helped you get out of your downswing the last time one happened, and if possible try re-creating this to see if it can help you overcome it faster.

Members, what helps you when you are feeling down?

Luciana, Bilingual Health Educator

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1044

Razzy 51, hi I'm goofy and I post alot when I'm not on a downward swing; seems to be therapeutic to me. I have lots of opinions - take 'em or leave 'em - they are that, just opinions. Nice to meet you!

Razzy51 grief doesn't just go away or process through it; it's life long. I have lost both of my parents recently - one 5 years ago, the other 2. I can still dothe same thing that you do - relieve that day for one days for the other. I don't know your spiritual background but my spirituality has been a strength for me. Gratitude is another thing that helped me - I think of all the things I have to be grateful for during the 40 some odd years I had with each of them, the time my son go to know them and be very close to them. I think of them losing all of us; not just me losing them. I think of all the laughter and good times we shared!

There is a section in here on grief - I did work through it with my dad's death (wasn't here when mom died). it helped. And depending on your spirituality there is a great little book out there called "Good Grief". About 5 dollars and the title is a bit of a turn off but the information is good. It is Christian oriented so may not be consistent with your spirituality. If it is, it's worth a read.

Finally, recognize it's okay to feel those feelings. Do you resent that you had to "take care of everything" or are you "proud that you could do it". That's just a couple of examples - asking if there are other emotions attached to it. Did you go through the five stages of grief. Some of us take it slow; some faster and some get stuck in a phase and we all do it in different order and learning about grief (see session on grief) helped me. I lost my mom suddenly, my dad we had 6 days from the time we found out he died to the day he died and an opportunity to talk to him up until the day before. I'm grateful for that time.

I hope some of it helped. Take what you can use; leave the rest.

Thinking about you!

14 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2

So, I'm aware that I have upswings and downswings, both vary in times. I have upswings that last for a week, to months, and downswings that last from a day or two to months at a time.

Last week I came out of a downswing and started feeling better, feeling ok with everything, I was happier, and I started to reconnect with friends, as when I hit big downswing I tend to cut my friends and family out as much as I can, including my wife. So the past week, I was feeling better, did stuff with family, actually saw my friends, and was just in a good mood. Today, I'm feeling another downswing,

My downswings start randomly, and it starts differently. Sometimes its a bill that we weren't expecting or is higher than we thought, something breaking that needs fixing, or something. This time, it was a vivid flashback. I lost my father suddenly to complications due to heart surgery about 6 and a half years ago. He passed in his sleep while we were all home. I awoke that morning to my mother yelling for one of us to call 911 as she started CPR on him. An hour later he was pronounced at the hospital. It was a hard day, that I remember vividly as while my mother and sister were overcome with greif, I stepped up to handle everything that needed handling from his death until after the funeral, when I finally let myself crash thanks to my friends and wife(who I had just started dating).

So for no reason that I can think of, on my commute to work, I started going through the whole thing again in my head. It was hard, and I'm feeling myself on a downswing today. I don't know what brought it on, but I wanted to see if getting it out helped, as I'm also disturbed, irritated, can't think of the word that I had a week long upswing and I'm back down again. I also feel like, almost 7 years have passed, why am I still reliving it in my head on occasion. I know I went through different parts of greif years after when I got married, when my daughter was born, and things like that, but still, I'm going through something I thought I moved on from.

Anyway, just wanted to share to see if it helps me at all. Thanks for reading.

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Hitting downswings